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Staff Sgt. Eldon
Berthiaume, Infantryman WWII
Ted Tripp
08/02/06
 LAWRENCE - When Eldon
Berthiaume graduated from Lawrence High School in the
spring of 1942, he had no idea that in less than three
years he would end up with thousands of other Allied
soldiers as a POW in Germany at Stalag 5A. He would learn
to subsist on a slice of bread, a chunk of lard and
sometimes some green soup for much of the time, and
endure the loss of 50 pounds during his four-month
imprisonment.
Eldon was born on September 10, 1924 in Lawrence to
Aldona and Clement Berthiaume. On December 7, 1941, a
teenage Eldon was with his parents on the way to Gardner
when a Boston Herald newsboy on a street corner yelled
“Japs bomb Pearl Harbor. Read all about it!”
They stopped to get a paper about the impending war.
After graduation, and like many young men of the era,
Eldon went to work in the mills. He got a job in the
weave room at the Shawsheen Mill in Andover.
When war was declared, Eldon knew the Army would
eventually come after him and, in the summer of 1943, he
was drafted. He was sent to Ft. Devens for basic training
and subsequently assigned to an MP company. After a short
stint at an Army base in Michigan, he was ordered to Ft.
Ethan Allen in Vermont where he continued his MP duties.
 Late in 1943, Pvt. Eldon
Berthiaume received orders to go overseas. He shipped out
on the USS Mount Vernon troop transport as part of a
convoy to England. After he arrived, he spent much of the
year as an MP directing military traffic. This was during
the massive build-up of equipment and troops in
preparation for the Allied invasion on D-Day. Afterwards,
as more tanks and equipment continued to arrive in
support of the newly established front, Eldon’s
services as an MP were still needed. Then, suddenly, in
late 1944 Eldon was reassigned as an infantryman to the
3rd Infantry Division, 7th Infantry Regiment, Company G
… and sent to France.
In early 1945 Eldon’s unit was ordered to take the
small village of Utweiler in the Alsace-Lorraine area
just across the border in Germany. This would be the
first incursion of Allied forces onto German soil. Before
the troops started out, Major General John “Iron
Mike” O’Daniel gathered them together and told
them that there was “no opposition” in front of
them. Still, the troops were nervous because of the
impending battle, and Eldon remembers that almost all
skipped their meal that afternoon, including himself. At
6 p.m., the troops started out and marched all night long
towards Utweiler to relieve the 26th Yankee Division.
They reached the town around 5 a.m. and suddenly found
the ridge above the town lined with German tanks and
troops.
His radioman urgently requested tanks to counter the
threat. Three scouts were sent out to meet the U.S. tanks
to guide them in … but the GIs never made it.  And the U.S. tanks never
came.
There were minefields all around, so Eldon and five of
his buddies took shelter in the open cellar of a nearby
house, waiting for help. All of a sudden, a German
soldier burst through a door – a kid no older than
fifteen or sixteen – and in German ordered the
Americans to put their hands up.
He marched them out of the cellar and headed them towards
the German lines. They were passing a wounded German
officer when one of the American GIs stopped to put
a tourniquet on the German’s leg to stop the
bleeding. The officer then said something to the young
German soldier which Eldon later interpreted to mean
“Take care of these prisoners; don’t let
anything bad happen to them.”
The six Americans walked all day long behind the German
lines until they came to a house about 4 p.m. They were
taken to the second floor where another German brought
them each a slice of bread and a piece of lard. At this
point Eldon wished he had taken advantage of the Army
meal he had skipped the day before.
One by one the Americans were taken out of the room and
disappeared, until Eldon was the last one left. He feared
the worst as he could constantly hear rifle fire in the
distance. A German soldier came and Eldon was taken to a
sparse room with a German interrogation officer behind a
desk. Then the officer spoke – in perfect English!
He had been educated in the U.S. and had returned to
Germany to settle some family matters when the war broke
out. He couldn’t get back to the U.S. and was
drafted into the German Army as an interpreter.
Eldon gave the officer his name, rank and serial number.
Then the officer told Eldon that he would be “alright”
and shortly afterwards he was reunited with his five
buddies. Suddenly, artillery began to rain down on the
area as the Allies advanced.
The American prisoners were hastily put back on the road
with long lines of German troops heading further back
into Germany. It was here that Eldon noticed that the
Germans were using horses to pull their artillery and
supplies, and he thought, “the Germans don’t
have any gasoline left!”
Again, they marched all night long until they came to a
POW camp where they stayed for three days. The prisoners
were introduced to a green soup which they nicknamed
“spinach soup.” From here they were taken to a
railroad depot to board a train. As they were assembling,
Allied planes appeared and strafed and bombed the train,
totally destroying it. Some Germans were killed in the
attack, but, fortunately, the American prisoners were
unharmed.
 So it was back on the road
where they were forced to march to Stalag VA [5A], a POW
camp in Ludwigsburg. Here there were at least hundreds
and maybe more than a thousand prisoners with large
contingents of Russians, Americans, British, Poles,
French, and Indians. Each ethnic group stuck together and
always had something to trade to the other prisoners to
make life more endurable.
Eldon remembers that the Russians always had tobacco for
trade. The British had tea. The Americans sometimes had
chocolate from Red Cross packages. The Indians, he said,
were able to skip eating for several days and would trade
food for other items. He noted that the French always
seemed to have the latest intelligence on the Allied
progress in the war. He was convinced that they had a
daily source feeding information into the camp.
There was a day when Eldon was very hungry and he
approached one of the Indian soldiers for food. Eldon was
willing to trade his watch for a meal. The Indian
carefully examined Eldon’s watch.
Then the Indian took out a list from his pocket and on it
were written the names Bulova, Hamilton and other
well-known makers of fine watches. Eldon’s watch,
which was an inexpensive brand, was not on the Indian’s
list. The deal was off. Eldon stayed hungry that day.
*Send your questions comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com
The August, 2006 Edition
of the Valley Patriot
The Valley Patriot is a Monthly
Publication.
All Contents (C) 2006, Valley Patriot, Inc.
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